Saint Marcus, Texas (KXAN) – San Marcus City Council will look on Tuesday if the company will be allowed to build a data center within the borders of its city. A few others can also be built around Saint Marcus, but this is the only one inside the city, according to the mayor of San Marcus Jin Higson.
On Sunday, a few dozen people gathered at a community meeting hosted by the Data Center working alliance – a group of residents and activists who are warned of the environmental impacts of data centers.
“I think there are some people here who are concerned because they live near the facilities.” [planned location]”Some are concerned about things like noise and air pollution, and I think the broader Saint Marcus community has a lot of concerns about our use in general,” said Bobby Livinski, an environmental lawyer who works with the coalition.
A large data center can use more than 500,000 gallons of water per day, equivalent to more than 4000 people using water in one day, According to the University of Illinois Urbana Champin.
“Data centers require a ton of water,” said Levinsk. “They require constant cooling, and therefore the amount of water they say it will use, they will use it.”
San Marcus’s mayor Jin Higson attended a meeting on Sunday to learn more about the facilities before the Saint Marcus City Council meeting on Tuesday, when the city decides whether to change the division of the plot of land to allow the development of a data center.
She said: “The landowner indicated that he works with a data center that wants to locate there.”
Higson said it takes into account the amount of water required to keep the data center to operate. She said that the applicant uses a “closed loop system”, which reduces the required water.
“We need anxiety about water and future water in Texas,” said Higson. “So we will see how the water affects this data center and what are the requirements to move forward.”